Robert McElhone of Roseville thinks that “as Donald Trump now wants Greenland, the Panama Canal and Canada, should we be offering him at least Tasmania?”
“If a snow creation’s gender is not apparent, what’s so wrong with ‘snowperson’ (C8)?” asks Jim Dewar of Davistown. “Snow pleasing some people.”
Don Bain of Port Macquarie asks: “Who was it who championed the cause of us mere males when drawing attention to ‘one of Sydney’s more classy hotels refusing lunch to a man without a coat’ while ‘opposite him, a woman sat in comfort with her shoes off’? Why, of course, it was Granny, herself, in her very first column, back on January 11, 1947.”
Adding a little more history is Allan Gibson of Cherrybrook: “In 1972, J M D Pringle was the editor of the Herald, and he tried to move Column 8 ‘on the grounds that it did not earn its keep’ in what was the 10th column. We are told the management felt the column still commanded a valuable following but agreed to remove the signature and likeness of Syd Deamer’s ‘Granny’. Fast forward to tomorrow, January 11, and what has been a testament to its ‘valuable following’. We wish Granny a happy 78th birthday.”
Donald Hawes of Peel doesn’t muck around: “Responding to your challenge, I present not just a coffee lounge (C8), but a three-storey coffee palace, built by the Temperance Movement in 1889, in Broken Hill’s Argent Street, just 3.5km from Bells Milk Bar. Unfortunately, it has concentrated on alcoholic beverages and the odd drag queen since 1892, as latte-sipping clientele were not sufficiently abundant among the miners to keep the place going at a profit.”
“Interesting article about genetically modifying male mosquitoes, so their semen will poison and kill the females,” notes Michael Ward of Mosman. “Toxic masculinity at its worst?”
The choko (C8) whitewash (or is that pinkwash?) knows no bounds, according to Josephine Piper of Miranda: “In our family, pink chokos were served up as pears.” War baby, Alison Stewart of Waitara recalls much the same thing, minus the colouring, which makes sense, given pears aren’t pink as a rule.
“My late Uncle Rob was always ill after eating his mother’s mashed potato,” writes David Sayers of Gwandalan. “Then he saw her mashing it with boiled chokos. The chokos gave his ulcer plenty of gyp. Problem solved. No more extender.”
Column8@smh.com.au
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